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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723835">Wanted: A Nuance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeelosRN/pseuds/ZeelosRN'>ZeelosRN</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wanted A Gentleman - K. J. Charles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Mention of The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting, Period-Typical Racism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:20:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,015</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeelosRN/pseuds/ZeelosRN</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin reads a book that mentions a story surprisingly similar to his own, and talks through his feelings about it with Theo.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin St. Vincent/Theodore Swann</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wanted: A Nuance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>READ THIS NOTE.</p>
<p>This work contains criticism of a passage in The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting. DO NOT READ this work if discussing a book's shortcomings will bother you. There's really nothing else here to see that would make it worth it. It's a quiet domestic evening with Martin and Theo.</p>
<p>Comments are moderated. Discussion welcome as long as you have followed the instructions above. No personal attacks on me or other commenters.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theo loved watching Martin read, even other people's books. Theo loved watching Martin in general, of course, including early in the morning when he scratched his balls and farted and stretched his neck at bizarre angles shaving, before time for clothes and company manners. Reading was special, though, for both of them. Any evening Martin came home with a new novel was a good one.</p>
<p>That Thursday evening was special. "There's another one!" Martin crowed, even before kissing his lover hello. (Only slightly before, so that was all right.)</p>
<p>"Another one what?" Theo asked, because usually Martin brought his books home already beginning to get ruffled at the edges, but this one was still wrapped in crisp paper.</p>
<p>"Another like Jonathan! Look!"</p>
<p>Theo's eyebrows climbed as he accepted the package and gently turned back the paper. The spine read The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting, with no subtitle even on the title page. "Brother and sister, pretty as a picture," Theo read the first line aloud. "Doesn't sound very promising."</p>
<p>"Your friend Raven passed it on to me, a gift from his other friend."</p>
<p>Theo was already turning the page. "I like these two already," he said, "but I wonder if the different coloring is the author's way of telling us they're not truly brother and sister?"</p>
<p>Martin snorted. "If you're going to dissect it professionally, you can read it when I've finished."</p>
<p>Theo lifted his nose from the book to consider the much larger, sturdier man. "Fight you for it?"</p>
<p>"Haven't you been complaining all week that you don't have time for anything because your revisions are due on Friday?"</p>
<p>Theo cursed the revisions, his own books generally, heroes who unaccountably fell in love with women, and finally the readers for buying enough of Mrs. Swann's books to have them run to second editions, which really he didn't need to mention again except that it made him so happy he'd gotten in the habit of speaking the words "second edition" at every opportunity. When he finally surrendered the book, he was smirking. "At least I get to watch you read."</p>
<p>Martin laughed, and they passed a few hours comfortably enough, with Theo working and Martin mostly not distracting him too much. But the process of finding printing errors and duplicated paragraphs was not so enthralling that he missed Martin's upset "Hunh."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>It took Martin a few seconds to collect himself, and not in the way Theo had hoped for. His color was high, to be sure, but the tension around his eyes wasn't lust.</p>
<p>"Are you all right?"</p>
<p>"It's nothing," Martin said, so comprehensively unconvincingly that Theo put his pen in its stand and went to put an arm around him. Martin hugged him back, not overthrown, but not happy either. Theo glanced down at the page, and the word SLAVE might as well have been in capitals an inch high, it jumped off the page at him so.</p>
<p>"Come to bed?" Theo offered. "My shoulders ache and you have to work in the morning."</p>
<p>Martin nodded and set the book aside, and they went about preparing for bed in affectionate quiet.</p>
<p>Theo knew, as they lay down, that Martin was no more ready for sleep than he was himself. "You said Raven recommended it?" he asked, which was perhaps erring on the side of not saying what he meant, but Martin understood.</p>
<p>"It's not what you think," Martin said. "It's not bad. So far there have been two Black gentlemen mentioned, one a boxing instructor and one a brewer, both former slaves, and the depictions are- they're not- our hero respects them both and treats them as perfectly ordinary people."</p>
<p>"But?"</p>
<p>"But. Well. The baronet is explaining to the fortune hunter that it's not birth that makes a gentleman, after the fortune hunter has told him all about his childhood in the gutter. And he does it by telling the story of his friend the brewer, whose master died and left him his freedom, and the funds and training to start his own brewery." Theo was holding his breath, at this point. "And then there's this little bit about how the friend makes enough money to buy up his master's old brewery and get revenge on the family. As I said, it's not bad."</p>
<p>There seemed to be some risk that Martin would lapse into thoughtful silence until dawn. Theo wasn't sure what to say. He finally tried, "Hit a little close to home?"</p>
<p>Martin released a breath in an almost-laugh. "It's a bit unusual to see anything like my own story in a book like this. But no, I guess- The fortune hunter says he'll stop complaining, because others have it worse, and I would never want my story to be used that way. It's illogical in any case. The brewer in the story received the capital to set up a livelihood for himself, and that was the turning point in his life, just as it was for me. The fortune hunter never got that chance. It's a moment of bad reasoning in a book that I was finding refreshing, from a character who's supposed to be intelligent, and whom the author clearly expects me to believe is correct, that's all. My life is not a lesson in a child's primer. I've had very good fortune in some ways, and just because it's complicated doesn't change that."</p>
<p>"Thank fuck for abolition, though."</p>
<p>Martin laughed and pulled Theo closer. "As you say. Thank fuck for abolition."</p>
<p>Before they had quite dozed off, Theo murmured, "So I can read it in the morning then?" pretending that he didn't have about six hours of work left on the revisions that were expected at noon.</p>
<p>Martin laughed, deep and happy. "You can read it when I'm done. I've ignored enough African savages, devoted mute servants, and swarthy henchmen for the sake of a good story."</p>
<p>As Theo's revisions included striking every instance of the word "swarthy" from his own earlier work, he responded only with a snort and by burrowing his face into Martin's chest.</p>
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